Daily Emerald begs for cash to pay Hubin’s fees 06/25/2013
http://uomatters.com/tag/dave-hubin/page/2
Daily Emerald begs for cash to pay Hubin’s fees
Daily Emerald begs for cash to pay Hubin’s fees
Tag Archives: Dave Hubin
Daily Emerald begs for cash to pay Hubin’s fees
6/25/2013: UO’s student-journalists at the Daily Emerald have started a non-profit to raise money to pay the fees UO charges them to see public records about UO. Their explanation is here and the donate button is here. Note that all donations are public. Dave Hubin’s response, in the form of a letter to the ODE Editor, is here:
… We are committed to supporting quality journalism, and as members of the university community, are particularly supportive of the work of students. …
The Oregon Commentator reports similar problems with UO public records here. Apparently UO has prevented them from using student money, appropriated by ASUO for the purpose of buying public records, for paying the $240 President Gottfredson is charging them to see a copy of his official calendar. And the Register Guard had a story last week here, on other UO public records problems. My response to Hubin:
You should be embarrassed by what you’ve said and not said here Dave. And also by what you’ve done, and not done about public records and transparency.
For starters, you said that the meetings of your PR AAG – which you set up to subvert the Senate Transparency Committee – would be open to the public. But you’ve never even told UO’s student journalists when the PR AAG meetings would be. I found out about them by being persistent, and then told the reporters and posted the times and locations on UO Matters. At the last meeting you wouldn’t even let the student reporters ask questions.
The Senate Transparency Committee recommended fee waivers for UO student journalists in February. You said after the meeting that such a policy would be in place “expeditiously”. You’re still stalling. http://uomatters.com/2013/02/transparency-committee-votes-to-waive.html
Your 72% number for no fees is padded by including the many requests where the PR office simply forwards a link to an existing document. How many times has UO waived fees on the basis of a public interest claim since you’ve been in charge of the PRO office?
I think the answer is zero. Occasionally you give 20% discounts, if Lisa Thornton likes what she finds when she googles the requester, and decides that the local community should know the information – but the requester often still has to pay hundreds of dollars. For details on the Dec 2012 meeting where we learned how ad hoc her methods were, try here:http://uomatters.com/2013/03/hubins-public-records-group-to-meet-wed.html
You do waive fees for what the office considers to be simple requests. Or should that be “un-embarrassing public records”? Because you’re still stalling and trying to charge the students $240 to see Gottfredson’s official calendar. That’s just bizarre.
You claim that response times are decreasing. Again, that’s because you include requests for things like coaches contracts, which are online. For anything else, it’s typical to wait two weeks, or longer, to get a response. Often there is no response at all until I petition the DA’s office. And even then responses typically involve a hefty fee and no substantive explanation for the fee-waiver denial. The office gets about 1 request a day – including the trivial ones – and has a budget of $240K and 2-3 staff. They can do better.
You and PR Officer Lisa Thornton attempt to justify these delays and fees for student-journalists by saying that’s the way the real world works, and dealing with these obstructions from their university is helping their education. Insulting.
I know that running the PR Office is not a job that you sought, or enjoy. But you’ve become a hypocrite about it, and you are now far to comfortable and facile with that role.
Bill Harbaugh
UO Economics Professor
UO Matters Editor
Or, as Vladimir Putin recently said, trying to get public records from UO is “like shearing a pig: there’s lots of squealing and little fleece.”
AAU update. RG calls out Gottfredson and Hubin on public records fees and delays.
Update: Can Oregon’s flagship university stay in the AAU? If so what do we need to do? That seems like a question of public interest. But not to President Gottfredson, whose public records office is trying to charge UO student journalists $94 for the records:
Public records fees charged by the UO continue to hamper the newspaper’s ability to get records that student reporters need, Stites said. For example, the UO said the Emerald would have to pay $94 for copies of correspondence between UO President Michael Gottfredson, Provost Jim Bean and the American Association of Universities, Stites said.
“We haven’t been able to get it yet because we can’t scrape up the money because we’ve already used so much money on other public records,” he said.
At Gottfredson’s previous university, UC-Irvine, these sorts of records would be available at no charge. The University of Nebraska, the last university to get kicked out of the AAU, can charge for the pro-rated cost of the pdf scanner and the electricity it uses, but nothing else. Under Gottfredson UO has *never* waived fees on the basis of public interest.
And for the Potemkin Village press release story of UO’s public records office, check out Friday’s report in “Around the 0″.
6/16/2013: President Gottfredson seems hell-bent on raising journalists’s suspicions about the legislation for an independent UO Board. Diane Dietz of the RG has the latest story, which emphasizes the continued stalling by Dave Hubin and Gottfredson on a Senate Transparency Committee recommendation to give student journalists fee waivers, so that they can get information about UO and keep the students informed:
The debate is happening as the UO asks the Legislature to create an independent UO governing board — on the assumption that the board would govern the university as a public body in an open and transparent way.
So presumably Gottfredson is getting his marching orders to cut back on transparency from the donors pushing for a UO Board. Hubin has a lot of quotes about how complex it all is:
What if, Hubin said, a student wanted to know if faculty travel to conferences was done with the lowest carbon expense, and the student asked for records involving 60 departments? Would that be reasonable?
What if? That’s Hubin doing what he does best – running out the clock. In fairness to Hubin he did a great job implementing public reforms under Lariviere. He got the public records office to respond promptly and cheaply to public records requests. But now we’ve got a new president who hates transparency, and at the most recent meeting of Hubin’s public records advisory group Hubin wouldn’t even let the 3 student journalists present ask questions.
Meanwhile, Hubin is fine with letting his office charge Nick Ekblad of the Oregon Commentator $240 for a copy of President Gottfredson’s official calendar. And now UO won’t even let them use student funds to pay to see it. The RG quotes Frank LoMonte, attorney and executive director at the Student Press Law Center in Arlington, Va.:
“We tell people all the time that if the president won’t sit down and make himself available for an interview, then use your state open records law to get a copy of his appointment calendar and e-mails. If the president would open his door and sit down and make time for you, then you might not need his e-mails.”
Speaking of which, it’s now been more than a month and no answer from President Gottfredson to my question on how an independent UO board will be handled under the public records and meetings law:
The current draft says that most of ORS 192 will apply to “a university with a governing board” but it does not say that the board itself will be. Additionally, the intent is to have the board appointed by September of this year, although it doesn’t have any actual power for another year. Under ORS 192 this means the board’s meetings until then might not be subject to the open meeting rules, even if ORS 192 does apply to the board.
Student reporter Dash Paulson had an excellent ODE interview with President Gottfredson back in January, and extracted this quote:
When asked about transparency at UO, Gottfredson said, “I absolutely support it.” However, he didn’t dive into details. When asked about making public record requests less expensive (or free, as they are at his previous university) Gottfredson said, “That’s something we’ll look into.”
Sure. Gottfredson hasn’t let a student journalist interview him since. As for the rest of the press, Gottfredson told the RG last August that:
